72 RURAL M:W YORK 



The vast rich country was involved with the Mili- 

 tary tract in the claims oi' tlie State of Massachu- 

 setts, under grant of the King of England. Its claim 

 was adjusted with New York on December 16, 1786, 

 by which Massachusetts retained the preemption 

 right to settlement while all political authority was 

 reserved to New York. The eastern boundary of 

 this latter territory was roughly a line north and 

 south through Seneca Lake (due north from the 82nd 

 milestone on the Pennsylvania line to Lake Ontario) 

 and was thereafter known as the Preemption line. 

 The preemption rights of Massachusetts were ac- 

 quired by Nathaniel Gorham and Oliver Phelps in 

 1788 for 300,000 pounds consolidated securities and 

 later they purchased the claims of the Indians to 

 some tAvo and a quarter million acres scattered 

 through the western part of the State. The main 

 part of the tract was east of the Genesee Eiver and 

 was known as the Genesee tract. As a result of 

 financial stringency, the titles of Phelps and Gorham 

 were acquired in 1790 by Eobert Morris and by him 

 disposed of to a Dutch company made up of Sir 

 William Poultney, William Hornby and Patrick 

 Calquahan, and known as the Holland Land Com- 

 pany. This concern and its successors surveyed the 

 area and opened land offices at Canandaigua, Batavia, 

 IMayville and other points, and gradually during the 

 next sixty or seventy years disposed of its holdings. 



Prices of land in the early days in these large areas 

 as well as in small farm tracts were, of course, low, 

 as the supply of land was almost unlimited. Then, 



